Posts Tagged ‘Holy Week’

Why is it that Roman Catholics tend to call today “Holy Thursday” and Lutherans, “Maundy Thursday”? We both know it by both names, but we seem to use a different default. Strange, huh?

And what on earth does “Maundy” mean? (Apparently “maunder” is an obsolete word meaning, “to beg”. There was an old tradition of the monarch distributing money – maundy money - to the poor on Holy Thursday. Is that where it comes from?)

But I digress.

Isn’t it amazing how different people can hear the same story and get completely different things from it?

Tonight, at Church, we listened to the story of Jesus washing his disciples feet (John 13:1-17), and we listened to the story of the Last Supper (1 Cor 11:23b-25 / Luke 22:19-20). These stories left Possum unmoved.

Perhaps it is just that kids are so disingenuous that washing someone else’s feet is no biggy. And really, the Last Supper is a bit out there – transubstantiation is a rather big mystery for a grown-up, let alone a little mind to even pick it up in the Gospel reading.

Actually, he was completely thrown by the idea that Jesus could feel scared. Then we started reading about some of the things that happened that night in our children’s Easter Bible. He was totally horrified.

We played this hymn as a reflection in the Church. I always find it a spellbinding video to watch, but this time, so did he.

(Thank you to my darling DH who managed to find this video in about 30 seconds after I had spent hours searching…)

And finally, during the stripping of the altar, as we sang the repetitive, almost chant-like:

Stay here and keep watch with me;

Watch and pray.

Stay here and keep watch with me;

Watch and pray.

At first Possum asked why we were singing such a slow song. I told him the words so he could understand. After a moment he joined in, too, with a real sense of horror and awe.

Bandicoot is 3 years and 9 months (Good grief! He is growing up too fast!)

Little Princess is 1 year and 3 months (15 months)

Yesterday was Spy Wednesday. If you would like to know more about how this day gets its name, here isa neat explanation.

To celebrate – er, maybe commemorate is a better word – the day, we read the story of Judas from one of our favourite Easter Children’s Bibles:

(This book is Jillian Harker and illustrated by Jane Swift. I haven’t been able to find it in print anywhere (Paragon), but Amazon do have a few second hand ones listed.)

We also baked Judases. Well, I baked them.

I think it would be fair to say that these are definitely NOT Passover friendly: I thought that the amount of yeast in the recipe had to be a typo! (No kneading, either. Very unusual.) Still, I went with it and I ended up with some lovely, lovely, light, sweet bread.

I did substitute orange zest for the lemon zest as my lemons seem to have disappeared. They tasted *so*good* that I think I might modify my recipe to use orange in the future.

Apart from the whole Passover/yeast thing (and, if you are Orthodox, the egg, milk and butter thing), I really am left to wonder: how can food that tastes this decadently good be fasting food? Not all bad, is it!

So here we are at the pointy end of Lent. I hope that your Lenten observances have been more “successful” than mine have been. I don’t know about you, but I seem to get very bogged down and distracted by the day to day stuff of life. The point of Lent is to try and cut down on that, to realise our reliance on God. I guess it is always a journey.

I have, however, decided to help our family end with a bang (or “Stick the Landing”, as was our theme at Church last Sunday.) Here is what we are doing:

Abstaining from meat (with the exception of the scheduled dinner at McDonald’s on Thursday night.) I am aware that this is my thing, and not theirs, so I will see how we go. If DH wants to buy meat at lunch time, then I am not putting up a fuss. Likewise, I will not make Possum miss out on the end-of-term fundraising sausage sizzle at his school on Thursday. However, I will not be serving meat.

And secondly, I have made up some Holy Week activity books for the kids:

I was inspired for this brilliant idea by Sylvia over atOrthodox Mom (this is the blog entry where she inspired me.) There is one for each of the kids, including Little Princess (who loves to draw ALL the time – and on anything.)

Here are a few sample pages:

I spent way too much of my sleep time trawling the internet to find activity pages for them – colouring, puzzles, mazes, songs, cut and paste (do you like the palm leaves stuck down in front of Jesus and the donkey in Bandicoot’s book in the middle there?) There isn’t any new content (that I can remember, anyway), but a lot of work getting them sorted. Each book is a bit different as I tried to tailor them to their current abilities and interests.

They work progressively through Holy Week, with Good Shepherd pages (I wanted to introduce The Lamb), Palm Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (preparing hearts and homes), Spy Wednesday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Saturday and finally Easter Sunday and Beyond. I have allowed bunnies to appear in the final section – and I think it will keep them going a while – but not before.

The kids are really enjoying the books, but I think the best bit about them is the devotion time preparing them has given me. I didn’t realise what a wonderful, focussing activity it would be.